


Blink

by myqueenyoursavior



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8119261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myqueenyoursavior/pseuds/myqueenyoursavior
Summary: This is a fanfic I wrote inspired by OperationOUT (http://operation-out.tumblr.com/) which you should totally check out, if you haven't already.





	

She doesn’t… she can’t recall how long she has been sleeping. She can’t even tell if the last images that keep coming up on a loop in her head are real or not. All she can really hope is that it was all a bad, bad dream.  
 She shift slightly in what seems to be a bed. She can tell it’s a bed by the softness of the mattress, and the warmness of the covers enveloping her body; but she has no idea how she got there. Especially if what she keeps dreaming about really happened.   
She decides to finally open her eyes, in an attempt to understand what’s going on. She blinks once and the room, a room she can’t recognize, is full of light. She blinks again, and the room around her is completely different, but almost completely dark as well. She falls asleep again.

* * *

  
All of a sudden, she is in the middle of Storybrooke, Regina is by her side. No, she is behind her… She is holding her back.  
  
“Regina, let me go. Please,” she cries out, trying to escape from Regina’s strong, but gentle arms around her body.  
  
“There is nothing else you can do right now,” the other is telling her, she doesn’t understand her tone “you can’t save them.”  
  
And now she understands who the “them” she is referring to are: a mere 10 feet away from them, she can spot both her parents. They are lying in the middle of the street, lifeless.  
As she is about to fight against the other woman keeping her there in place, a purple cloud envelopes them, and they are at Regina’s house.

  
“Mom! Dad!” She yells out as she is being transported. But as she utters those words, she realizes these are the same images they have been going on in a loop in her mind for who knows how long.  
  
She blinks, and everything around her is white. It looks like a hospital room. She looks up and the first thing she sees is Regina, or someone that looks exactly like Regina. It is her, she realizes, but she looks extremely exhausted. And there is something missing; something she can’t really put her finger on.  
  
Before she can figure it out, she blinks again and she is in Regina’s room at the mansion. The light is dimmer here. She looks up again to find herself face to face with Regina, her Regina.  
  
“Emma,” the brunette says, almost whispering “you were having a nightmare.”  
  
“Was it all a dream?” She asks hopeful “My parents…”  
  
But she doesn’t need her friend to answer her, she can see it in her face: the face of someone who has been crying for hours, or maybe even days.  
  
“I’m sorry,” the other says, gently caressing her cheek.  
  
“I can’t,” she says, holding back tears “I can’t do this, Regina.”  
  
And with that last sentence, she is asleep again.

* * *

  
She wakes up who knows how many hours later. She opens her eyes, and she is still in Regina’s room. She looks around: Regina is sitting on a chair right next to the bed. She can feel heat coming from the other side of the bed. She is about to turn around toward it, but she blinks…  
  
She is now back at the hospital room, on her left she finds Henry curled up on the bed next to hers. On her right, Regina is sleeping on a chair as well, but she is not her Regina. She is dream Regina.  
The weight of the loss just makes her go right back to sleep.

* * *

  
“Mom… dad…” She is yelling out again.  
  
She feels gentle hands on her shoulders. She opens her eyes to find Regina, her Regina, trying to keep her in bed.  
  
“Regina,” she says, letting out a sob “I can’t do this anymore, the nightmares… it’s too much.”  
  
The brunette just nods at her, before placing a hand on the other woman’s forehead. She is using a spell, a powerful spell that puts you in a deep slumber, a slumber so deep you can’t have neither nightmares or dreams. She has used it on herself a lot during the years after Daniel’s death, after she had started learning magic. She knows this will give Emma a bit of relief, even if only momentarily.

* * *

  
She wakes up all of a sudden, sweat running down her back. She tries to yell, but her throat feels dry; or like something is preventing her from speaking. She blinks multiple times, and each times she is in one of the different rooms she has been in so far. The pain in her throat is too much now, she falls back asleep.

* * *

  
She cautiously opens her eyes, her throat feels better now, but swollen. She is back at the hospital. She tries to move her hand and she reaches for something. It’s someone else’s hand; she squeezes it.  
  
There is a noise, a chair moving, and Regina is looking down at her.  
  
“How long have I have been here?” she asks, her voice raspy.  
  
She sees something in Regina’s eyes, like sadness mixed with uncertainty.  
  
“Three years,” the brunette answers her.  
  
“It can’t be…” she whispers, before closing her eyes shut.  
  
She blinks once more, and the same scene repeats itself. Except they are in Regina’s room now.  
  
“How long?” she asks this time.  
  
“Three days,” answers the brunette, looking at the chair behind her.  
  
She follows her lead, and she finds her son on it, staring at them, an horrified look on his face. She reaches for the other woman’s arm, to signal her to get closer.  
  
“I can’t… I don’t want Henry to see me like this,” she begs, in between blinks. She can see both rooms, both Reginas leaning on her bed.  
  
“Mom, please,” she hears as she is about to fall asleep again “I want to be here. I want to be here for Operation Emma Swan.”  
  
“Henry,” it’s Regina this time “she doesn’t want you to see her like this. Give her some time.”  
  
She doesn’t know where their voices are coming from, which reality she is in. She can’t grasp whether she is in the real world or in her dreams.

* * *

  
She tries to roll on her side, but there is something holding her in place. She tries to turn just her head to her left, and she opens her eyes. She finds both Henry and Regina curled up right next to her on the bed, they are both peacefully sleeping.  
She blinks, and the same scene is presented in front of her eyes in the hospital room. Except in this one, they are on the bed right next to hers.

* * *

  
She finally feels stronger, her nightmares are getting fewer and fewer. She opens her eyes…  
  
“Regina?” She calls out.  
  
The room is brighter than usual, but it’s still Regina’s room. It must be daytime.  
  
“Emma,” the brunette comes running toward her “what happened?”  
  
“I want to get up,” she says.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
She just nods at the question, and she goes to sit up. She reaches for the floor with her left foot, and she almost slips. Regina reaches out for her just in time, and she helps her stand up.  
  
“I should get a shower, shouldn’t I?” She says, trying to sound funny.  
  
Regina just nods at her and guides her into the bathroom; and sits her on the toilet.  
  
She looks at how the brunette is taking care of everything she might need: she is getting her a fresh towel, and some clothes to wear afterwards.  
  
“Here,” says Regina, offering her hand.  
  
She reaches for it, and she gets up again. She is about to unbutton what seems to be one of Regina’s pajamas, when she can feel the other woman’s hands stopping her.  
  
Regina is carefully helping her undress. She is being so gentle with her, it’s almost like she isn’t even there; like she is undressing her own self.  
  
“I can take a shower on my own,” she says, trying to sound funny again “I don’t need a babysitter.”  
  
“Okay,” says Regina, without blinking “but I’m staying out here.”  
  
In the middle of rinsing her hair, she hears a voice approaching the bathroom.  
  
“Mom, ma,”  
  
“In here, Henry,” says Regina, before opening and closing the door.  
  
She closes the water in order to listen to what they are saying outside.  
  
“Is she okay?”  
  
“She is taking a shower.”  
  
“Is she going to be okay though?”  
  
“She needs a bit more time, but she is getting there. She is strong, you know?”  
  
“I know. I just want to do something to help her.”  
  
“You already are. All she needs right now is us here.”  
  
There is a pause.  
  
“How about you go make some hot cocoa?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
As she listens to her kid worrying about her, she almost slips in the shower. She holds on just in time. As she listen to Regina entering the room again, she calls out for her.  
  
“Emma? Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” she lies “Could you pass me the towel?”  
  
As Regina is approaching the shower, she opens it. She gets out without thinking.  
Regina, who is holding the open towel right in front of her face, doesn’t see her being so close.  
  
She reaches for the towel, and as she is wrapping it around herself she makes eye contact with the brunette. That causes her to almost slip again.  
  
Regina instinctively reaches for her, and she holds her by the shoulders.  
  
She manages to balance herself enough to firmly wrap the towel around her body. Right after, as Regina is taking a step back, she wraps her arms around the brunette’s waist. That startle her a little, but then she wraps her own arms around the blonde’s shoulders.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Regina let out with a big sob “I am so sorry I wasn’t able to save them.”  
  
“It’s not your fault, Regina.”  
  
“But the Evil Queen killed them… that is still me.”  
  
“It’s not your fault,” she repeats as a mantra, as she clings to the other woman a bit more. She can feel the mourning in every fiber of Regina’s being. She knows it’s not her fault; she just wants her to know as well.  
  
That night, all three of them go to sleep in Regina’s bed, with Henry sandwiched in between his two moms.  
  
The nightmares, unfortunately, are back again…  
  
“I did what you were never able of doing,” says the Evil Queen in front of them “I got you your revenge, I finally killed Snow White and her precious Prince Charming.”  
  
She is on her knees, right beside Regina, unable to move. All she can do is watch.  
  
“You… you…” says Regina, fighting really hard to hold back tears.  
  
“Don’t tell me you care about those two idiots?” asks the Evil Queen laughing, already knowing the answer.  
  
Regina fires a few fire balls in her direction, but Emma can’t see if they have reached her or not; all she can see now is the emptiness in the exact spot she was standing a few moments earlier. Then her eyes drift lower, and she is about to move forward. She trying to go to her parents’ bodies, but Regina’s arms are enveloping her from behind.

* * *

  
She wakes up in a pool of sweat; she blinks and she turns her head slightly. The room around her is bright, looks like early morning. On her left side there is only Regina, her eyes fixed on her. She hasn’t taken her eyes off the Savior ever since that tragic day.  
  
“Where is Henry?”  
  
“His bed,” Regina says getting a bit closer “I told him to get a bit more comfortable.”  
  
“Regina?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Did you defeat her?”  
  
“I didn’t. Not yet, at least.”  
  
“Why hasn’t she come back for me… for us?”  
  
“I think I injured her pretty badly last time.”  
  
“She’ll be back tough, right?!”  
  
“I think she will.”  
  
“We need to be prepared. I need to get stronger for when she does.”  
  
“You don’t…” starts Regina, a sad expression on her face “let me deal with her alone.”  
  
“I can’t let you,” protests the blonde “we do it together, okay?”  
  
Regina just nods at her, before reaching out for her shoulder and squeezing lightly.

* * *

  
It’s two days later, she is at the mansion’s backyard, trying to regain her strength. Henry and Regina are with her as well. Both adults are practicing with their magic, and the kid is helping them out.  
 Regina is about to throw a fireball, when suddenly the sky gets darker. The backdoor suddenly closes shut behind them, getting the trio’s attention. When they look back at the other side of the yard, they are almost face to face with the Evil Queen.  
  
Both mothers' instinct is to protect Henry, but Emma is the one closest to him, so she shields him with her entire body. That catches the Evil Queen’s attention for a moment, only a small moment.   
Regina is about to attack her, but the Evil Queen is quicker. She gets so close to Regina and she rips her heart out.  
  
“Almost all red,” the Evil Queen let out a laugh “I don’t know if I should be impressed or ashamed.”  
  
“Regina,” yells out Emma.  
  
“Silence,” says the Evil Queen, silencing and immobilizing both mother and son with a flick of her empty hand.  
  
A blink later, the Evil Queen is crushing Regina’s heart right in front of her eyes. The brunette’s body falling lifeless in the grass.  
  
“Reginaaa…” She cries out, before even realizing she can move again. At least Henry was behind her.  
  
She turns around at the thought of their son seeing his other mother lying there in the grass, and she is suddenly thrown in the other direction.  
 As she is landing on the other side of the yard, she sees the Evil Queen reach out for Henry’s heart as well. She hits her head before she can see what happens next.

* * *

  
“Henry! Regina!” she wakes up, crying out.  
  
She closed her eyes shut immediately, she doesn’t dare see what is the situation around her. She keeps crying out both of their names though, until she feels two sets of hands reaching for hers. She opens her eyes to find herself face to face with both Henry and Regina. She throws herself in their arms, causing them to flinch at first. A moment later, they are holding her just as tightly; the three of them holding on to each other as though they are holding on to dear life.  
  
She promises herself not to slip away from this reality, the hospital room one. She doesn’t care if this might be the dream one.  
  
As they let each other go, she asks again: “How long have I been like this?”  
  
“Three years,” answers Regina.  
  
This time she doesn’t let herself fall asleep, she keeps her eyes open.  
  
“Ever since…” She starts, realizing what that means “ever since the first day I met you?”  
  
“Yes,” says Regina gently “you were in a accident. A car accident.”  
  
“I remember now,” she says, trying to get a grasp on reality.  
  
She finally starts to understand what had been the reality and what had the been the dream. She can’t fully distinguish the two of them, but this is a start. She understands that she has been in an accident three years before, and probably has been in a coma ever since.

* * *

  
She is fighting really hard not to slip right back into her dream reality, but she can’t fight sleep. Not for too long, not in the physical state she is now.  
Every time she falls asleep, she is right back into what had been Regina’s room. It is always pitch black now, the only reason she knows she is back there is by the smell. Every time she opens her eyes in that reality, she hears a voice echoing in the room. The Evil Queen’s voice…  
  
“You foolish girl. Didn’t I tell you that love is weakness?”  
  
“Don’t you see? Their lives are only worst because you are there.”  
  
“You got into their lives and now they are dead.”  
  
She usually hears one of those phrases on repeat, until she wakes up in the hospital room, either screaming or crying. During the worst nights, she hears them all repeat in a loop, like a broken disk.  
The only thing that keeps her going now is the thought of waking to both Henry and Regina by her side in the hospital room.

* * *

  
She wakes up one morning, something holding on to her hand: Regina’s hand.  
She clears her throat trying to catch her attention, she doesn’t know if she should call the other woman by her name or not.  
  
“Miss Swan?” says Regina, leaning closer.  
  
“Don’t…” she is about to tell her not to call her Miss Swan, but she remembers this isn’t her dreams “you can call me Emma.”  
  
“Emma,” says the brunette, smiling slightly, she had called her by her name so many times before while she was still in a coma, but now… now, she didn’t know if she could.  
  
“Call me Regina,” she adds quickly.  
  
“Regina,” she says with a weak smile “Where is Henry?”  
  
“School,”  
  
“Good,”  
  
“Did you need anything?”  
  
“No,” she says, before seeing the helplessness in Regina’s eyes “Actually, can you keep me awake? The dreams… the nightmares are too much.”  
  
“Sure.”

* * *

  
That same late afternoon, the three of them are together in the hospital room: Emma is trying to sit up for a longer period of time, both Henry and Regina are sitting on either sides of her bed. She is trying to explain the tangled mess that was her life in her dreams; what she thought had been her reality for the past three years. She has given them a gist so far: she was Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter, Regina was the Evil Queen; they had started as enemies, but now they were allies, family.  
  
She has gotten to the part where her parents are killed by the Evil Queen, the part that Regina had tried to remove from herself, when she stops talking.  
  
“What happened then?” asks Henry, eager to know the whole story in details.  
  
“I…” she stars, blinking rapidly.  
  
“Why don’t we let her rest a bit?” suggests Regina; an idea in her mind of what might have happened next, causing her to wake up completely from the coma.  
  
“Okay,” he says, a bit bummed out, but understanding at the same time.  
  
She falls asleep again a few hours later; the voice still echoing around the dark, empty room.

* * *

  
“Emma?” says Henry, hesitantly.  
  
They are just the two of them at the hospital room; Regina has gone downstairs to get something to eat.  
  
“Yes, Henry?”  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure thing.”  
  
“Can I call you mom?” he says, looking down at his hands “Or ma, since I already call mom that.”  
  
“Oh, kid,” she says, tearing up “that’s what you always called me in… you know.”  
  
“Really?” he asks, looking up at her and smiling widely.  
  
“Really!” she replies, smiling just as widely back.

* * *

  
Time has been moving particularly slowly now; in her other reality, time seemed to fly. She is in her room, alone, staring blankly at the tv in front of her. She hears heals approaching the room, and she looks toward the door immediately.  
  
“Regina,” she exclaims.  
  
“Emma.”  
  
They have been spending a lot of time together now that Emma is almost always awake. They are slowly getting to know each other. It feels almost the same as it was back in her dream version: Regina is almost like the Regina she knew there, but without that weight of having been the Evil Queen.  
  
“Where is Henry?”  
  
“Home,” she replies, then notices the worried look on the blonde’s face “he had some homework to do.”  
  
“Oh, okay,” she says, giving out a sigh of relief.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” says the brunette, sitting down on the chair next to the bed.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Was I… was I really the Evil Queen for you?” she asks in a low voice “for you and Henry, I mean.”  
  
“No,” she answers quickly “You have always been Regina to me. And as for Henry, I think at first he thought you were the bad guy, but I think that was my subconscious taking over. But then no, deep down I always knew he thought of you as his mom. Just that, his mom.”  
  
“Really?” asks Regina, trying to hold back tears.  
  
“Yes,” she says firmly, noticing the expression on the other woman’s face “You are a good mom, Regina.”  
  
“Thank you.”

* * *

  
“Ma?” says Henry, just the day after.  
  
“Yeah, kid?”  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
It is question time, she thinks. That must be what happens when you have been in a coma for three whole years, dreaming about fairytale characters. Both mother and son have a lot of questions to ask her, she can see that, but she can also see how they are trying not to push her. She has questions of her own, about the three missing years, about… everything; but she wants to regain some of her strength before she starts asking them.  
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“Did I fight dragons or whatever in your dreams?”  
  
“You… didn’t.”  
  
“But,” she continues “you have done a lot of heroic stuff.”  
  
“Really?” he asks excited “like what?”  
  
“You were in Neverland with Peter Pan, who was the bad guy. You switched bodies with him for a bit.”  
  
“You confronted the author when we were all trapped in a different universe; and you came to save us all.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, you were our hero. Especially your mom’s.”  
  
“What was mine?” asks Regina, approaching the room.  
  
“She is telling me more about the dreams,” replies Henry.  
  
“I was telling him,” says Emma, clearing her throat “I was telling him that he was your hero.”  
  
“He is my hero here too,” she says wrapping her arm around Henry’s shoulder “my little prince.”  
  
At the last two words out of the brunette’s mouth, Emma starts crying.  
  
“Did I say something wrong?” asks Regina.  
  
“No,” she replies, wiping tears off her face “you didn’t. It’s just… it’s just what you usually called him in my dreams.”  
  
“You must have caught that from here,” says the brunette, squeezing their son’s shoulder “that’s what I have been calling him ever since I adopted him.”  
  
“I love it,” she replies smiling, trying not to start crying again.

* * *

  
“Leave me alone,” she wakes up crying out.  
  
“Emma?” it’s Regina’s voice calling her in the dark.  
  
“Regina?”  
  
A moment later, the hospital room is illuminated by the light on the nightstand.  
  
“You were having a dream,” says the brunette.  
  
“A nightmare,” says the blonde, tears running down her face.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?” asks Regina gently.  
  
“I…”  
  
“You don’t have to.”  
  
“I don’t know where to start.”  
  
“Start at the beginning,” suggests the brunette “or start wherever it feels more comfortable to you.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
She explains her how, every time she closes her eyes to go to sleep, she goes back to that dark room. How she hears the Evil Queen’s voice, her own subconscious voice, telling her all those mean, hurtful things. She doesn’t mention the part where her and Henry are dead, but she explains how the Evil Queen thinks they are better off without her.  
  
“She is wrong, you know?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“The Evil Queen,” says the brunette “She is wrong… we are not better off without you.”  
  
“Thank you,“ she says smiling.  
  
“Does that happen every time you fall asleep?” asks Regina, now holding her hand.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”

* * *

  
“Kid,” she exclaims as she sees Henry entering her room “where is your mom?”  
  
“She is talking to the doctor,” he says, quickly approaching the chair “I wanted to talk to you before she got here.”  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“I just…” he starts, before he starts crying.  
  
“Hey, what happened?”  
  
“I am sorry… I am so sorry.”  
  
“Talk to me, kid.”  
  
“I have been trying to find the right moment to apologize…”  
  
“Apologize for what?”  
  
“For coming to get you that famous night. For putting you in this bed.”  
  
“Oh, kid,” she says, tears running down her face as well “It is not your fault.”  
  
“It is,” he says determined “if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this bed.”  
  
“Kid,” she says, patting the mattress “come here.”  
  
Just a few days earlier, all the tubes and wires coming out of her body had been removed. She is starting to get up with the help of the nurses; and today she has her first therapy session.  
  
Henry nestles up right next to her, and leans his head on her shoulder, tears still streaming down his face. She notices how tall he has gotten in the past three years.  
  
“Kid,” she repeats “if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had you right now, or your mom.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“The accident, everything that happened from that day forward, isn’t your fault,” she says firmly “understood?”  
  
He nods slightly and clings to his mother even more. She holds him to herself as much as she is able to with her current strength.

* * *

  
Things are getting almost back to normal: Henry has been going every day to school, Regina tries to be there almost every day. Being mayor, she doesn’t have to always be in her office; today is one of those days. Her and the brunette are growing closer and closer each day, so much that Emma can’t really see the difference between this Regina and the one from her dreams. The only thing that maybe still gives it away is the fact that in this reality, she doesn’t have her magic.  
  
“Regina?”  
  
The brunette looks up from her laptop, and in her direction.  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure,” she replies, closing her laptop and placing it on the nightstand.  
  
“Do you remember that night?” she says almost whispering at first “The night Henry brought me to you?”  
  
“I do!?”  
  
“Do you also remember…”  
  
“What, dear?”  
  
“Do you also remember there was a vibe between us?” she asks hesitantly “Did you feel that too, or it was part of my dreams as well?”  
  
“There was…” says the brunette, before looking straight into the other woman’s eyes “there is.”  
  
She smile widely: one of the things she didn’t want to let go from the dream reality, was her deep connection with Regina. She is glad the vibe she had felt ever since that first meeting is mutual.

* * *

  
A few weeks later, the three of them are chatting about Henry’s school.  
  
“So,” he says “the teacher said that I was a very unique boy.”  
  
As her son utters those words, Emma makes a weird face. She contorts it so much in order not to let her tears fall out of her eyes.  
  
“Henry,” says Regina, noticing just that “How about you go get something from the cafeteria?”  
  
“Okay,” he says, looking from one mother to the other “I’ll be right back.”  
  
As soon as he is out of earshot, Regina gets closer to the bed.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“I was wondering…”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“There was a moment in my dream when we were fighting,” she starts.  
  
“You and Henry?”  
  
“No, me and you.”  
  
“Oh!”  
  
“Yeah, we were fighting and I came into your vault, did I mention you had a vault?”  
  
“You did,” she says gently “What happened in the vault?”  
  
“I came there to make it up to you for something I did, and…”  
  
“And I said something like ‘Living in Storybrooke, I’ve got my son and my parents, and I love them. But they can’t always understand me. They don’t know what it feels like to be rejected and misunderstood… Not the way I do, not the way you do. And somehow that makes us… I don’t know…”  
  
“Unique, or maybe even special,” Regina continues for her.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“That is…” she starts saying “That is a version of what I have told you one time when I was trying to wake you up.”  
  
“What… what did you tell me? Do you remember?”  
  
Regina just nods, and then starts explaining.  
  
*******  
Emma had been at a low point in her recovery at the time, the doctors were almost going to give up on her. Regina was the one who had to decide whether she wanted the unplug her; Henry was the only blood relative the blonde had, but he was too young to decide, so the decision was Regina’s to make now. And Regina didn’t want the other mother of her son to give up on her life.  
  
She had leaned close enough to the blonde to talk into her ear.  
  
“Emma, please don’t give up on yourself…on us. I know we have never really talked and you don’t know me, but… Living here, I’ve got Henry and I love him. But he can’t always understand me. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be rejected and misunderstood… Not the way I do, not the way you do. Thank god, he doesn’t. But, I don’t know… this, this makes us unique, or maybe even special. I am not looking for you to assuage my guilt, I am just looking for you to be okay. And maybe be my friend. Crazy, right? But I thought it could be, that it might be possible. I’m not going to give up on you, on us. Even if you still want to.”  
  
At those last words, the brunette had felt a hand grasping weakly at her arm. She had looked down at the blonde reaching out for her through her coma state.  
  
“See? That’s a start.” she had said, smiling.  
  
********  
“That was you?” she is speechless at what Regina has just told her “Those were your words?”  
  
“Yes,” admits the brunette “I didn’t want you to give up on your life.”  
  
“Thank you, Regina,” she says, tearing up.  
  
“Anytime, Emma,” Regina says, tearing up as well “Anytime.”

* * *

  
It’s another of those morning in which Henry is at school, and Regina is at the hospital room, working from her laptop. Emma appreciates the company, but doesn’t want to distract her too much from her work. That until the image on the tv screen in front of her changes to two people kissing.  
  
“Regina?” she calls.  
  
“Yes?” asks Regina, looking up from the laptop. The blonde calling her name always makes her smile; she couldn’t get tired of it, because it meant the other woman was alive.  
  
“Can I ask you something?”  
  
“Sure!”  
  
“Have you ever…” she starts, then rethinks the way to word her question “While dreaming, have you ever wanted to kiss someone so badly, that you were almost so close to do so, but never couldn’t?”  
  
“Then, you have those moments where all you wanted to do is punch someone in the face, but you end up kissing them?”  
  
“I…” thinks the brunette “I think I have experienced the first one, I don’t recall the second one.”  
  
“Oh!”  
  
“Who…” Regina starts hesitantly “Who was the person you were always almost kissing?”  
  
“You,” she says, her cheeks turning pink “It was you, Regina.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” says Emma “It was unbelievable. We were always in these situations where we were so close I could’ve just kissed you, but then it never happened. It was frustrating to live… to watch.”  
  
“Didn’t anyone around us notice? Or say anything?”  
  
“No,  that was the weird part: nobody said anything, ever,” she says, before realizing “I guess my subconscious wasn’t ready to deal with it.”  
  
“Is your subconscious ready now?” asks Regina, seeing she had brought the subject up.  
  
“It’s ready,” says Emma firmly “and so am I.”  
  
They both smile at each other; the connection they had felt over the curse of the three years was definitely there. Emma had connected with her in her coma state through what she could hear, and sometimes see, in the hospital room. Regina had connected with the other woman by learning anything she could about her life before showing up at her front door; and through the few of the blonde’s movements and words in her coma state.

* * *

  
“Tell me more about what I did in your dreams,” says Henry, one afternoon.  
  
“Okay, let’s see…” she starts, scratching her head “You learned to sword fight with Prince Charming.”  
  
“You have told me this already.”  
  
“Okay….”  
  
“How about….” she says after thinking for a couple of minutes “How about the time you saved magic?”  
  
“I saved magic?” asks Henry enthusiastically, getting up from the chair and sitting on the edge of his mother’s bed “I did that?”  
  
“Yeah, kid.”  
  
She tells him all about him wanting to go to New York to destroy magic because it was tearing his parents apart. How her and Regina had to go after him. How in the end he had to bring magic back.  
  
“So, yeah… you had to bring magic back because we had to bring your gr… Snow White and Price Charming back from another realm.”  
  
“You had to make a whole bunch a people in New York believe in magic, and you did.”  
  
“Really?” he is asking, smiling widely.  
  
“Really.” she says, a bittersweet expression on her face “Then, you, me, your mother, and Violet drove back in the yellow bug.”  
  
“In your dreams, who was this Violet you keep mentioning?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“A girl you liked,” she says “Or maybe you were dating her?”  
  
“Who is dating who?” asks Regina, who had entered the room just in time to hear the last sentence.  
  
“I was telling Henry about this girl, Violet, I am pretty sure he was dating in my dream reality.”  
  
“Ma,” he says, looking down.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It was a secret…” he admits “A secret I told you before you woke up.”  
  
“You are dating someone??” asks Regina in a high pitched tone.  
  
“I am not dating her, mom,” says Henry, jumping off the bed “She is just a girl that moved here a while ago, I don’t have any chance with her.”  
  
“You don’t…” starts Regina, pride for her little prince overcoming the idea of him dating someone “You don’t have a chance with her? If you have even a little bit of the Mills charm, I am sure she will like you.”  
  
“Yeah, kid,” says the blonde, smirking at the brunette “if you are anything like your mother, she won’t have eyes for anyone but you.”  
  
“Ew, gross.”  
  
“What?” ask both mother at the same time.  
  
“Can you stop looking at each other like that?”  
  
“Like what?” asks Emma.  
  
“Like I need you to leave you alone in the room. Gross.”  
  
“Would it be…” says Regina concerned “would it upset you if me and your mom would start seeing each other?”  
  
They had discussed it a lot after they had noticed the vibe they felt was mutual, but had decided to wait once Emma could finally get out of the hospital.  
  
“It’s not that,” he says, looking from one to the other “You have been giving each other heart eyes ever since ma woke up. I just don’t want to hear about the gross parts…”  
  
“Not even…” starts Emma.  
  
“No!” say both mother and son.  
  
“… the part were you came face to face with a big troll, with a smelly breath, yelling in your face?” she finishes.  
  
“That,” says Henry, sitting down on the edge of the bed once again “that I want to hear.”  
  
Before starting to tell him the story, Emma looks up toward Regina, and winks at her. Regina smiles back, and approaches the other two, to listen to the story as well.

* * *

  
There is only one other time in which Henry insists on knowing what caused Emma to wake up, how the story ends.  
  
“Come on,” he begs “Can you tell me?”  
  
“Henry Daniel Mills,” says Regina from the other side of the room “stop arguing with your mother.”  
  
“But…”  
  
“Or your mother…”  
  
“Kid,” says Emma, looking at Regina’s direction with soft eyes “Why don’t you go see if they have some hot cocoa with…”  
  
“with cinnamon.” say all three of them at the same time.  
  
“How do you know?” asks the blonde, looking from one to the other.  
  
“It’s one of the few things you kept saying in your sleep,” says Henry “Hot cocoa with cinnamon.”  
  
“It has begun our little tradition,” says Regina, nodding “Having hot cocoa with cinnamon.”  
  
“I’ll be right back,” says Henry.  
  
As soon Henry has left the room, Emma starts tearing up.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“You’ll think it’s silly.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
“Whenever something reminds me of the dream reality, I get overwhelmed by all these contrasting emotions.”  
  
“Oh, Emma,” says the brunette, a tear rolling down her own cheek “it is not silly at all.”

* * *

  
“Regina,” says the blonde one afternoon they are alone.  
  
“Yes, dear?”  
  
“I have another question for you.”  
  
“Sure,” says the brunette, closing the book in her hands.  
  
“There was this time,” she starts “in the dream reality, I was sleeping after my parents… I was sleeping, and I remember you saying: ‘I love you, Emma. Please, be strong.’ I was wondering….”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I was wondering if that was only part of the dream or…”  
  
“Oh,” says the brunette looking at the other straight in the eyes, telling her everything her mouth isn’t ready to say right now “I have grown fond of you over the past three and a half years.”  
  
“Yeah?” says the blonde smiling “I have grown fond of you as well.”  
  
She settles for not using those three words, the three words that in the dream reality had wanted to utter to Regina for so long. For so very long, ever since Regina had almost sacrificed herself in the mine. But, she doesn’t want to push the other now… She can feel that, whatever feelings they have for each other now, it is completely mutual. That is one thing that is definitely better that the dream reality: here, her and Regina are completely open about whatever they feel for the other. Those meaningful looks they had kept exchanging in the dreams are all still there, of course. But there isn’t anyone to please or protect when it comes to who she chooses to love.

* * *

  
They are entering the mansion, which looks exactly the same as the first and only day she had set eyes on it. She has just been released from the hospital,  she is strong enough to not having to be there all the time, but she isn’t done with the therapy.  
  
Henry and Regina guide her through the front door, and she is welcomed by a big banner reading “Welcome Home, Emma.”  
  
At the sight of it, she starts sobbing, so much that the other two grab her at each sides.  
  
“We don’t have to make a big deal out of it,” offers Regina.  
  
“Yeah, I can take it down, if you want,” says Henry.  
  
“No, no,” says Emma, in between sobs “It is perfect… so so perfect.”  
  
She doesn’t know what has gotten to her the most: the fact that they had used the word ‘Home’, nobody had ever made her feel like she belonged somewhere before; or the memory of the dream reality. Of that time that her and Snow White had gotten back home, and she had a small, separate banner from Snow’s. As if someone had remembered at the last time that she existed as well.  
  
“Thank you,” she says, noticing the ‘Henry’ on the right left corner of it, written in the same handwriting as the rest of it; and the ‘Regina’ written meticulously next to it, in another handwriting.  
  
That brings new tears to her eyes,  causing the other two to hug her tightly. She hugs back immediately, not wanting to ever let go.

* * *

  
That same night, Regina is guiding her in what is her own bedroom. They have an unspoken agreement, she thought, about the fact that Emma isn’t ready to sleep alone. Her nightmares are almost all over, almost being the key word, so she doesn’t fell like sleeping on her own. Regina had picked up on that.  
  
As soon as she enters the room, she takes a step back.  
  
“Everything okay?” asks the brunette concerned.  
  
“Have you…” she starts, taking a few steps forward now “Did you show me pictures of this room while I was asleep?”  
  
“No,” says Regina, thinking back to more than three years prior “I have described how the rooms looked after the renovations we had to make after the fire.”  
  
“Fire?”  
  
“Yes,” says the brunette, sitting down on the bed, and looking around the room  
“We had a fire a few weeks after… after your accident. Someone, a snake who was blackmailing me, caused it.”  
  
“Gold,” says the blonde.  
  
“How did you…?” asks the brunette, the question they have been asking each other a lot lately. ‘How do you know what was happening on the other side?’  
  
“He caused a fire in my dream reality as well,” she says, sitting down next to the brunette “it was at the Town Hall, though.”  
  
“Did you or Henry get hurt?” she adds almost immediately.  
  
“No,” says the brunette, looking away “We were at the hospital with you. If we hadn’t been there, the firefighters said we probably wouldn’t have made it.”  
  
“I am so sorry,” says the blonde, reaching for the other woman's hand.  
  
“You saved us, in a way,” says Regina “I like to look at it that way.”  
  
They sit there in silence for a long while, thinking about how in different ways, they both saved each other. Holding each other’s hand for just as long, the only physical contact they have had during the coma.

* * *

  
“Mom, ma,” calls out Henry, getting home from school one day.  
  
“In here,” says Regina from the living room.  
  
“What do you have there?” asks Emma, as their son enters the room.  
  
“Something I made at wood-shop class,” he says, sitting between his two mothers on the couch.  
  
“I made a new mailbox for us,” he says, showing them a mailbox with the words “Swan Mills Family” on it.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” says Regina.  
  
“I love it,” says Emma.  
  
“See,” he continues, pointing at the words “I painted the ‘Swan’ part in red because I know it’s your favorite color, ma. And the ‘Mills’ part in yellow because it’s mom’s favorite color. And the ‘Family’ part is half yellow and half red.”  
  
“Actually,” he says, correcting himself “Mom’s favorite color was black, it became yellow after you came along.”  
  
Regina gives him a nudge, but Emma is immersed in her own thoughts to notice.  
  
“The True Love colors,” she says in a whisper.  
  
“What?” ask Regina and Henry.  
  
“The True Love colors,” she repeats out loud “in my dreams, red and yellow were the True Love colors.”  
  
“Really?” exclaims Henry “That is so cool.”  
  
Regina looks at Emma with ‘heart eyes’ as Henry would say.  
  
“That is definitely cool,” says the brunette, imitating their son “And I love the mailbox, Henry.”

* * *

  
“What do you think I should wear?” asks Emma, entering the bedroom they share.  
  
“Whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel comfortable.”  
  
“It’s our first official date, Regina,” she points out with a pout “I can’t go with a jeans and a shirt.”  
  
“You can, if that makes you feel comfortable.”  
  
“What were you thinking of wearing?”  
  
“My blue dress.”  
  
“I should wear something fancier, too.”  
  
“You don’t have to,” says the brunette, then notices the expression on the other woman’s face “What would be something ‘fancier’ that you’d wear?”  
  
“Hmmm…” she thinks for a moment “a white button down shirt and black pants.”  
  
“That sounds perfect,” says Regina, smiling.  
  
“You don’t want me to wear a pink dress or something like that?”  
  
“I want you to wear whatever you feel like wearing,” says the brunette, raising her eyebrow “Do you even own a dress like that?”  
  
“I don’t,” admits the other “I just thought…”  
  
“Em-ma,” says Regina, getting closer and placing her hands on the blonde’s shoulders “you don’t have to be someone you are not. You are perfect like this, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” says Emma, smiling gratefully.

* * *

  
It’s a few week after their first date, they are in bed together; it’s the first time they had actually done more than just share a bed. Emma looks up at the brunette, blinking repeatedly.  
  
“Why are you doing that?” ask Regina worried “is something wrong?”  
  
“No, I just…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Don’t laugh at me.”  
  
“I would never…”  
  
“I was making sure this was my reality, our reality,” she says, a tear escaping from her eyes “When I was… when I was in between realities whenever I blinked, I would get to one of the two worlds. I wanted to be sure there was only one.”  
  
“I would never laugh at you for that,” says Regina looking at her with all the love in the world.  
  
“I love you, Regina,” says Emma, those words she had been wanting to say for so long.  
  
“I love you too, Emma,” says Regina, without thinking twice, before leaning over and kissing her “I love you too so much.”

* * *

  
“Close your eyes,” says Henry.  
  
“I won’t peek, kid.”  
  
“Close your eyes anyway.”  
  
Emma follows his instructions. It’s her birthday, eleven months since she has waken up from the coma; four years since the accident.  
  
“You can open them now,” says Henry, after helping her sit down.  
  
She is sitting down at the living room table, both Henry and Regina are sitting at either side. On the table, there are a few wrapped gifts, and a huge cake that says “Happy Birthday Emma”. This is a huge contrast from the last birthday she celebrated all those years ago, a huge contrast to the cupcake she had bought herself.  
  
“Come on,” says Henry when he sees his mom isn’t doing anything “Open your gifts.”  
  
The first thing she opens is an exact replica of her famous red leather jacket.  
  
“It took us a while to find the exact one,” says Regina “but we wanted to get you the same one, since the other got ruined in the accident.”  
  
She is trying really hard to hold back tears, she can’t be tearing up all the time.  
  
The next gift is a key, she looks at both of them confused.  
  
“It’s a key to the house,” says the brunette “I wanted you to have your own copy. This is your home, after all.”  
  
Holding back tears now is getting even harder. What actually does the trick is the last gift: the Storybook. Henry’s Storybook.  
  
“How?” she asks, opening it and reading the words on the first page “This is a different one?!?”  
  
“Yeah,” answers Henry “I made you a new one. It’s our story.”  
  
Emma touches the words ‘The Swan Mills Family Story’ on the page, and starts crying tears of joy.  
  
Both mother and son instinctively reach for her hands.  
  
“I have been writing in it ever since that first day,” admits Henry “that’s why I wanted to know what caused you to wake up.”  
  
“Okay,” says Emma, the nightmares have been long gone, she is ready to tell them what happened “I am going to tell you now.”  
  
“You don’t have to,” says Regina.  
  
“Yeah, ma.”  
  
“I want to,” she says, she is 100% sure.  
  
She stars explaining them all the time she had spent in bed after her parents’ death in the dream reality. How she wasn’t strong enough to fight the Evil Queen. She gets to the part where she kills both of them as well. The look on Henry and Regina’s faces is indescribable.  
  
“So, to answer your question,” says Emma, she had thought about it for so long as well “What caused me to wake up was the thought that I couldn’t live in a reality where you didn’t. I couldn’t stand the idea of being separated from you, both of you.”  
  
Their grip on her hands is even stronger now.  
  
“I was living in this fake reality where Snow White and Prince Charming were my parents, because I had this wrong idea of the perfect family. Because of how many parents have rejected me when I was going from one foster home to the other,” she continues “but I was wrong. The perfect family, my perfect family, is you two. I didn’t realize what you were doing that night, Henry, when you brought me here. But I think you were bringing me home.”  
  
Tears are running down on all three’s faces now. They all get up instinctively for a big, tight family hug. There is nothing else that matters in the world for either of them, except for each other.


End file.
